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Daniel Kawczynski MP - idiot or incompetent?

Friday, 25th July 2008

Oh dear. The Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski lays into Melanie on CentreRight:

This person lambasts me on the report published yesterday from the International Development Select Committee of which I am a member without even bothering to pick up a phone to check her facts. Why do people accept such lazy and inaccurate reporting. I enclose below two communications I have had with the Chairman of this Committee.

He then goes on to publish some correspondence he's had with the Committee's chairman, which explains how he "has distanced himself from his fellow Committee members for advocating negotiations with Hamas, the Palestinian militant organisation."

Oh dear. I fear Mr Kawczynski is either an idiot or incompetent, and probably both. The thing is...he signed the report. He put his name to it. He supported its recommendations. Clearly, and unambiguously.

And here's what Melanie wrote:

Depressingly, the Commons International Development Select Committee -- with one sole dissenting voice -- has followed the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee by calling in a report today for Britain and the west to start talking to Hamas.
...In short the report is a disgrace. Labour and the LibDems are beyond redemption when it comes to attitudes to Israel -- but what does David Cameron think about this? Does he agree that we should be talking to Hamas? Does he go along with the report’s agit-prop vilification of Israel and minimising of Arab violence which two of his MPs have endorsed?

If he says nothing, we can take it that he does.

These are the MPs who signed this report:
Malcolm Bruce MP (Liberal Democrat, Gordon) (Chairman)
John Battle MP (Labour, Leeds West)
Hugh Bayley MP (Labour, City of York)
John Bercow MP (Conservative, Buckingham)
Richard Burden MP (Labour, Birmingham Northfield)
Daniel Kawczynski MP (Conservative, Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Ann McKechin MP (Labour, Glasgow North)
Jim Sheridan MP (Labour, Paisley and Renfrewshire North)
Mr Marsha Singh MP (Labour, Bradford West)
Sir Robert Smith MP (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)
Shame on all of them.

She doesn't single out Mr Kawczynski for opprobrium; she lambasts all the MPs who signed it. And she praises the one MP who didn't, Stephen Crabb.

From Mr Kawczynski's words after the report was published, it seems that this was a mistake of some sort, as it didn't represent his views. But HE SIGNED IT. As I said above: he's either an idiot or incompetent.

And for him to lambast Melanie, who took his signature on a report to be a reflection of his support for that document, is a bloody cheek. Especially when Melanie does more in an average day to stand up for liberty and freedom than Mr Kawczynski appears to have managed in his entire parliamentary career.

UPDATE: No doubt about it. He's an idiot.

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Vescere bracis meis

July 25th, 2008 12:10pm

Distinct echoes of Max Mosley here.

Had Mr Kawcynski said nothing, the IDSC report would have been forgotten and the response of the voters of Shrewsbury & Atcham would have probably been "Melanie who?"

However, methinks he is digging the hole deeper and risking himself being dubbed a prize plonker.